Consistency

Is consistency the ability to show up focus of each individual step regardless of its quality? Or is it the ability to forget about the end goal in service of making progress at a regular rate?

A lot of people use ‘consistency‘ as a mindset to help them achieve their goals and there are a number of other questions that can be used to frame the significance of this word like I have done above. The reason for introducing consistency like this is to speak on the importance of being open minded when it comes to problem solving your way through whatever it is that’s in front of you.

One example takes me to my post attack recovery. For me, consistency was all about trying to be a fraction better than the person I was the day before, regardless of how much progress I made. Some days would be better, some would be worse but in order for me to have the courage to get up every day and try again, I needed to make sure I was taking constant steps towards my goals. Progress was everything and it’s something I described at the time as being consistent.

Now, today I have very different goals in front of me and they provide a different set of challenges. One of my goals in particular is to post regular updates on this journal and that’s something that on the face of it needs to be done consistently. Every Tuesday/Thursday is the goal but there’s definitely days when I don’t feel like I have something of value to offer which challenges this notion of consistency. Do I post regardless? Do I wait till I have an idea I want to talk about? It’s a tough situation to find myself in when I try to reflect on how well the approach worked in the past.

This is where the open mindedness comes into play. I still think consistency is important but rather than look at it as a prompt (consistency means I get up and do the work), I look at it as the outcome. In order to be consistent, what do I need in order to get these posts done. It’s a work in progress but I’ve started saying to myself “In order to achieve the outcome of consistency, I need to look at why I’m doing this in the first place”.

As much as I would love for people to find value in my writing, I most importantly need it to continue learning from myself. I use this Journal as reflection and a platform to put my thoughts in paper (digitally). Once I remember that, It becomes easier to write these pieces for myself.

It’s so easy to look at this as a Journal for the public, but that’s only a byproduct of wanting to write for myself. I’m no lauded author so it’s strange that I would think my writing deserves a huge audience and until it’s published somewhere other than on this website I will only ever be writing for myself and that’s something I can do a lot more consistently rather than waiting for the perfect idea to come to mind that I think people will enjoy.

Consistency to me is a lot of things but a journey has no set timeline so the pressure we put on ourselves to be consistent is entirely arbitrary and this thought has helped me come to terms with how I approach not only this journal, but a lot of things in front of me at the moment, let’s see where it all goes.